I know, I know. Everyone is tired of hearing about the snow. But really, that's pretty much our life these days. Each morning I look out the window and hope that it was a bad dream, but it's still all there. It's all white. It hasn't even had a chance to get to that "dirty snow" thing, because it never stops snowing. There is always a new layer falling to cover up the exhaust fumes and slush piles. Oh wait. Slush would imply something had melted. We haven't gotten that far yet since the temperature has hovered so far below zero that my brother-in-law in Alaska is feeling sorry for us.Only one car is accessible in our single driveway, the other being tucked in the garage under. I don't like having a car inside my house. It's wrong on so many levels. And it is sitting on a "donut" wheel anyway, so before we can make it go very far there is work involved and no one has the energy to do anything. Commuting has become a tedious nightmare. They say they have been working on the subway connections and that we should have full service tomorrow. Maybe. If it doesn't snow any more. Which it always does. One day last week I spent five hours on a round trip to a job where I work for eight hours. And not a big job. I'm no brain surgeon. The pay is piddly, although the atmosphere is pleasant. But come on, people!I had tickets for community theater last night, but I was so spent I couldn't go. It was snowing (again) and I'm getting over the flu, and I just could not move. I was in my nightgown and robe by six o'clock. On a Saturday night. My grandparents used to go to bed at 7:30 and I would pity them and also laugh. I'm not laughing any more. This is getting depressing.If I weren't such a wuss about driving on ice and snow I'd go to the art museum. I find I am starving for color, for the sight of trees, for beauty of any kind that isn't white. What I don't want to do is spent two hours at my open bedroom window, wielding a shovel which has been married to a broom handle through the magic of duct tape, trying to push snow off the roof of the porch below so that it doesn't collapse under the weight of the snow. The curtains blow in my face. The snow blows in my face. And it looks as though I've done absolutely nothing when I've finished.I'm getting so desperate that Himself invited me to join him at the gym and I'm going. Just to move in a non-shoveling pattern. Or drink coffee with strangers. Or swim in the pool and pretend I'm in Bermuda. Monday is coming up fast and I need to brace myself for the Herculean task of getting to work. If you remember, for one of his labors he needed a shovel, too.

It was bound to happen. I knew it the first time he picked up a rugby ball. Yesterday a knee to the face resulted in a broken nose for my college senior, who has avoided serious injury (at least that he informed me about) up until now. Luckily in this age of technology, even for Luddites like myself, Son Number One was able to comfort me long distance with a "selfie" which really didn't look all that bad. I suspect that today there will be panda eyes and more swelling, but at least he went to the emergency room for treatment so he's been seen by someone who knows significantly more about broken noses than I, with my fairly useless degree in French. To tell you the truth, that nose which started out like a tiny button all those years ago, has been looking a little "askew" for a while; not obvious, but just the tiniest bit crooked. Mother is suspecting that this might be her baby's second broken nose, but who can tell?The trial of the long distance Mom is to stay calm and supportive and let him handle it on his own, which he is quite capable of doing. He even used his "Talk Her Off The Ledge" voice when he phoned to assure me he was fine. I know it could have been a far worse injury. All those prayers and guardian angels I dispatch seem to be doing the job. My idea of winning a rugby game is empty ambulances on the edge of the field. This is football with no padding. This is, in my humble opinion, nuts.And so I absorb another exercise in "letting go", a class for which I don't remember registering. Son Number Two is in Cleveland fencing for his university. I hope he doesn't come home with a dueling scar across his cheek. That test I would certainly fail.

I've been up since 4:30 this morning listening to the wind howl. Son Number Two is flying home for Thanksgiving this morning in the middle of rain, wind, and thunder. I've come to expect this. There is never a trip to or from Ohio that is not fraught with peril. If it isn't weather it's a missed connection. If it isn't either of those it's the flu. One way or another, that poor kid never catches a break.He is a charmer, really. He has a great smile, and a kind heart. What he has done to annoy the Powers That Be is a complete mystery to me, but somewhere along the way he must have set them off. I have a few days off from both jobs and will spend the weekend doing singing "gigs", four Masses, two funerals, and a Christmas tree lighting between now and Tuesday. This is fun, and my preferred way to make money, although it won't pay the mortgage yet. The best part is that it puts me (except for the tree lighting) in a place where I can dump my problem in God's lap and hope S/He doesn't stand up. On second thought, I can (and do) do just that no matter where I am, but you know what I mean.I once read, and I believe, that once you have a child it's like wearing your heart on the outside of your body for the rest of your life. The vulnerability is painful. There isn't a blessed thing I can do to protect them anymore except pray, and I do that, but I hold my breath until they are tucked into their beds, even if it's only while passing through from one place to another. A dear friend from Wales has arrived bringing photos and gifts and memories of my other dear friend who passed away in February and after whom we named Son Number Two. There is a picture of SNT at the age of about four, sitting on a high stool at the counter in the kitchen in Wales and laughing hysterically at something outrageous. I'm sure it was a fart joke. They usually were if they got that big a laugh. He's a physics major now and doing very well, but he still hasn't lost that sense of joy and abandon. So, United Airlines, you'd better take care of the Joy Boy and get him home in time for turkey because Mom needs one more thing for which to be grateful, and that will be a beaut.

The neighbors are out there power washing their deck. It's noisy, but it's almost 11:30 on a Saturday morning, and really, good for them. I, on the other hand, sit here surrounded by so many things to do that I am doing the square root of nothing, paralyzed by the overwhelming size of each task. This is my first day off in quite a while, and it's a lovely morning. The temptation to sit on the couch and catch up with the last season of "Desperate Housewives" is strong. Equally strong is the desire to gather all the old magazines which are creating teetering piles, the "Oprahs" and the virginal "Writers' Digests", and drive over to my doctor's office, scattering them throughout the waiting rooms in the building. Or to take Mother's clothes out of the front hall closet and donate them to Morgan Memorial, giving us more room, and me another iota of closure. Or to tackle the mountains of laundry, clean and otherwise, which are taking over my bedroom like some monster in a Grade D film. At the very least I should go for a walk or cut the grass. But plantar fasciitis is tuning up, and by the end of a five hour shift at the mall I'm walking with a cane, and I don't bloody feel like it. So I'll set the timer on the stove and do fifteen minutes of something. Anything. But first I'll have my tea. And maybe a biscuit.The fact is, with all this lovely weather and a day to myself, I am down in the dumps. Finally I have time to stop and think and breathe, and the Bogeyman has caught up with me. Griefs which I thought were healing are not, and will not until I sit with them, listen to them, maybe write a poem about them, and move on. I'm disappointed in myself that finally getting back into the work force hasn't produced the job of my dreams, but one part time job which I very much like, and one in retail, which I very much don't. And the excitement of re-inventing myself has become the resignation to another round of "Aw well, it's something," but I was hoping for so much more.So it's tea and a biscuit and something for now. Because at least that much I can still control.

It's been "One Of Those Weeks". I've worked the office job from 10 to 3 Monday through Friday (after working at the boutique on Sunday) and then Thursday and Friday nights I worked at the boutique until 10. Saturday I worked from 11 to 3:30, and today it's 2 to 7. Son Number One's girlfriend arrived (love her!) on Saturday morning at 1AM and I am, quite frankly, a tad fatigued. The grass is almost peeking in at the window sill and sobbing for attention. It will wait a few hours, I'm sure. Plantar fasciitis is tuning up for a symphony in my left heel. For right now I am enjoying sitting still. The torrential rains have left, and this Sunday morning the windows are open for a cool breeze and birdsong to start my day. There is a book at my elbow which is singing its siren song, to which I have every intention of succumbing. Give me a hot cup of tea and I shall rule the world.I don't know what I did during the fourteen years I was lucky enough to be at home with my children. It certainly wasn't housework. They had their music lessons and sports, karate black belts and play dates. My universe revolved around their schedules and that was our choice and our privilege. Most people don't have the option of walking out on their careers and taking an orchestra seat at life. Getting back into it (not a "career", but a "job") has been challenging.So much of how we define ourselves involves how we make money. At a party, when approached by a stranger and asked "Who are you?" the answer often is "I'm a doctor" or "I work in computers" or "I'm a cashier at Walmart and a pole dancer on weekends". I was stuck for an answer for a while, feeling a little guilty that my life was mostly driving the car and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. There was the embarrassment of not making a paycheck, but also an embarrassment of riches. I had time with my children. My friend Flanagan (whom I miss with a white hot heat) would call many days and be the only adult I spoke to between the hours of 8AM and 7PM. He would chide me to "Be a human being, not a human doing!" and remind me of how blessed I was to be in my situation. He would repeat the importance of the airline safety drill of "putting on your own oxygen mask before trying to take care of everyone else".While the children were in school I would visit with retired friends, and eventually, with my mother in her last years at the nursing home. I was free to spoon feed her lunch and amuse her cohorts with a song or a borderline-appropriate joke or two. I got to learn what really mattered. After a year of emptying out my routines, children off to college, Mother and Flanagan and Webb passing away to where they don't need me, I'm filling up my life with other things. But I have learned to appreciate the sheer luxury of sitting with a hot cup of tea and counting my blessings. And on this sunny, bird-filled day, I gently remind you to stop and do the same.

I'm loving the new job (well, one of them) and the people with whom I work are committed and focused. It's an adventure going into Boston every day for the first time in fourteen years, and it's quite nice to watch the savings account grow just a little once every two weeks. The learning curve, however, has become a lesson in humility. My aged brain, while amazing in its ability to remember many many new names, is showing some wear and tear when I try to figure out the accounting system. Or to put it another way, the people in the Accounts Payable Department are wondering if I am on drugs. There's this spreadsheet, you see, with too many columns and codes and numbers and stuff. There was a one hour conference call with the director of AP who just couldn't take it any more and had to try to pound it into my head herself. And then there was the royal mess I made of it, which had me feeling inadequate as I pondered it at three o'clock this morning.If I were my own best friend (which I usually don't manage to be) I would tell myself that I've only been there six weeks, that I should cut myself some slack, that it will come. In my more enlightened moments I realize that while people are trying to learn to walk with one leg, and others are wondering where their next meal will come from, my feelings of inadequacy are rather small potatoes. Still, one worries: "Is it because I'm getting old and my brain can't hold any more?" There might be something in that. Or it could be lack of sleep. I'll get it. I'll make myself get it. But it bothers me that I make mistakes that others can see. Wouldn't you think after six decades I would have figured out how ridiculous THAT is?

Nothing ever turns out quite the way you expect it to. For all my complaining about the Twenty First Century, it was a cell phone text message that restored my ability to breathe normally, and Facebook that allowed me to reassure my friends and family, who know that the Boston Marathon is my husband's "thing". My husband is safe, but other people's loved ones are not. There's an eight year old boy dead, and although I'm hoping it's a rumor, I heard that his younger sister lost a leg in the explosion. There are all sorts of stories circulating, and as usual, some are fact and some are fiction.

There's a lot of flag waving and saber rattling, and of course the ridiculous Westboro Baptist Church has threatened to picket the funerals of the Boston Marathon Massacre victims, but really they bore me and who the hell cares? There is a weariness in the air. We've been through this too many times already. We're getting used to chaos.

The closest I came to tears was when I heard that the Yankees were going to play "Sweet Caroline" at their game tonight, the signature song of the Boston Red Sox. It won't help anyone, but it was such a sweet gesture that it moved me. I was hoping they wouldn't get a chance to pay us back for having been equally nice to them after September 11. But I guess the world is in such a state that at one point or another we're all going to have to learn to be compassionate and caring towards our "enemies" at least for a little while. Then we'll forget and go back to the Yankees hating the Red Sox and the Red Sox hating the Yankees and I'll probably feel a little better then, because THAT at least is normal. This quiet sadness is not.

I find the period after a "hit" physically exhausting. Going to the boutique and pasting on the happy face as I deal with ladies buying clothes I couldn't begin to afford and which they don't need serves to distract me, but doesn't begin to deal with the issues. I want a bit of quiet, but that doesn't seem to be on the schedule.

It has occurred to me that I need to start cultivating younger friends or I'm going to run out. Since I was a child I have always gravitated towards "wisdom figures". I wept bitterly on the last day of school from the third grade right through high school. My teachers were my first real guides and friends. After school I would sometimes stop by for a cup of tea and then work in the garden. While I was in college I was the weekly housekeeper for my retired eighth grade English teacher, and we remained friends until I was well into my thirties when she passed away.

My first priest friend fell into my life when I had surgery at the age of thirteen and hit it off with the hospital chaplain. Since then I have met and added to my list of "inner circle friends" a number of priests. I'm not sure why. It's not a plan. If there's someone in a sweatshirt and jeans at a party and we have a wonderful time talking about important things, at least six times out of ten I'll find out he's been ordained. I guess I see the human being behind the Roman collar, and treat him accordingly. And sometimes very irreverently, which we all need once in a while to keep our feet tethered to Earth. My husband considers the clergy part of my dowry, and he and my children have become the family that some of these men never had. It's "win, win" until you get to today when one of them leaves and then everyone is reeling in pain. I suppose that's true any time you open your heart wide to let someone into the inner circle. The pain is in proportion to the depth of the joy received. And over the years this family has been blessed with great joy.

There's been another tear in the tapestry of my life. Canon Webb (aka "Uncle Jim" around here) slipped away quietly in his sleep on Sunday night after dedicating the new chapel in Saint David's Church in Mold, Wales. Since my boys were tiny (indeed, before they were born), we would spend our summer holidays at the presbytery, using it as a launching place for exploring castles. Every Saturday at 7:30 either I would call him or he would call me and we would catch up on the week. There was never a birthday, Fourth of July, or Christmas that the phone didn't ring with a greeting. We were family by choice, which, as I maintain, is the best kind of family to be.

Scary at first, his Cambridge University accent, hard acquired after a childhood rife with poverty, could prove off-putting. Then he would say something outrageous like, "One found that very amusing. We laughed so hard the tears of mirth ran down our leg," and after doing a double-take to confirm that I'd heard what I thought I'd heard, we'd howl. He introduced us to the phrase "tickety-boo" for use when things were just lovely. The first time I saw the town of Mold I commented that it was much larger than I'd imagined it. He replied, "Yes, but even in one's moments of most diminished sobriety, one would never mistake it for midtown Manhattan."

He was the friend of my high school history teacher, Rosemary, and I'd known him almost twenty years before we became friends. She passed away two months after my wedding, and when he came to town to collect his things which he'd left on various visits, we mourned her death together and sealed a friendship that will last forever. Himself and I named our second son after him, which delighted Uncle Jim. My friends are carefully chosen and fiercely and permanently loved. To take a third major hit in six months has been difficult. I haven't seen him face to face since 2007, what with college tuitions and airfare costing what they do, but the bond has never faltered. His face, intentionally stern and unsmiling, sits atop the piano and keeps me company.

Jim's funeral will be on Saint David's Day, which is Wales' equivalent of Ireland's Saint Patrick's Day. He'll miss the field of daffodils which should be in full bloom in his garden by then. But not a thousandth as much as we'll miss him. Sleep well, my dear, dear friend. And save me a good seat.

I have heard that when you have a child, you have decided to go through the rest of your life with your heart on the outside of your body. The vulnerability to which we subject ourselves by loving someone so intensely is hardly disputable, but I never realized until Sunday how painful it could be. Poor Son Number Two was just trying to get back to school in time for second semester of freshman year, when weather and bad airline connections stranded him alone in Philadelphia overnight without his luggage. Thank goodness the boys had talked me into adding texting to their cell phones. With Mom on hold with her cell phone, Dad on hold on the house phone, and both of us scrambling on our computers, we were able to book him on a flight the next day but not until 1:45 in the afternoon, more than 25 hours after his planned arrival. We talked him down off the ledge via long distance, directed him to Travelers' Aid and a hotel room for the night, and gave suggestions on how best to position himself for standby possibilities for the 7:30AM flight instead. It involved his getting up at 5:00AM, but he managed, and at 11:30AM I got the text that he was in his classroom and his professor's French accent was not bad at all.

We had taken him to the airport in ample time, hugged and cried and done all the things we'd promised we wouldn't do (OK...I did. Himself was a rock!) and still it didn't turn out well. Once again I was forced to accept that there are things in the Universe about which I can do nothing. So I did what I always do in such cases. I sent a "knee-mail" to God. At 5:00AM, when my younger son was getting up alone in a strange city, I was talking to the Boss, turning him over with faith that he would be protected. In less time than it should have taken my baby to get to the airport in Philly, I got a text from him that he had his boarding pass for the 7:30 flight.

I'll learn how to do the long distance college thing eventually. I hate having my "baby" so far away, and it may involve sending him back to school before he actually has to be there. He learned that he can cope in a crisis (even without a toothbrush) and I learned that he can cope in a crisis (even without me) and those were two important lessons. Now where's the sherry? I'm a wreck!

Author

The author, whose children have actually made it all the way through college (well, except for the one who is going for his PhD) is a lady of a "certain age" as the French say. She survived menopause and adolescence occurring in the same house at the same time and is now trying desperately to make it through the next four years with cheerfulness intact. Things don't look good.